Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.
These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter
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Holland v Spain. World Cup final
Uno y dos y tres … ganar y ganar y ganar!
Before the World Cup final, the mood is reflective: ‘What lies ahead? Am I ready? Can we win?’ Reflection takes most of them to think of family, girlfriends and absent friends.
Jesús Navas and Ramos are preparing undershirts which will allow them to pay tribute to their former team-mate Antonio Puerta, who died after collapsing during a match in 2007. Ramos did the same for the Euro 2008 trophy presentation and the memory of his friend, with whom he played at Sevilla and in the categorias inferiores, has not dimmed one iota.
Llorente suggests to Iniesta that he will help him sketch out a tribute to Dani Jarque, the Espanyol defender and an international team-mate of Iniesta’s at under-21 level, who died aged 26 in 2009, for the Barcelona man’s undershirt. They get to it.
When the time comes, Del Bosque doesn’t reach for stirring, patriotic, out-of-character rhetoric.
“Guys, you are not soldiers going into battle. This is football, not a war. We compete, we fight to have the ball, but we are here to keep on playing the way that we know how, to be loyal to our style. Humility, solidarity; be brave, start well, go after the game. That’s important.
“Don’t get tricked into doing anything daft. The only way to fail is to abandon what we believe in. Do it for yourselves, this is the biggest moment of your career, but if you need to think of anyone else, think of all the kids back home in Spain who are praying for you to win. Let’s give them what they want.”
Pre-match, on the BBC, Clarence Seedorf repeats a common analysis: “I think the key battle will be Robben against Capdevila.”
Arjen Robben (pre-match): “I would much prefer to win a very ugly game than lose a beautiful one. The point is, we are in a World Cup final. From now on, how you actually play no longer matters. We will defend from the front; no-one here feels they are too special to get their hands dirty.”
Maarten Stekelenburg, brilliant on the night, produces a fine save to prevent Ramos’ header from going in early on. And then the thuggish nature of Holland’s gameplan becomes evident. Even while the game rages on it brings them worldwide condemnation via broadcast and social media.
The referee, Howard Webb, tries to cope with Holland’s attempts to kick Spain out of the contest, but he also makes mistakes. By half-time it is no exaggeration to say that Van Bommel, Nigel de Jong and Sneijder could all have been red carded.
Van Bommel dives in and slices Iniesta to the ground from behind. Sneijder stamps his studs right into Busquets’ knee with the Spaniard standing upright. De Jong infamously brings his right leg up to kung-fu height and puts his studs into Xabi Alonso’s chest.
By the end, Holland have committed 29 fouls, Spain 19. Nine bookings and a red card to five yellows. One of Spain’s bookings is for Iniesta removing his shirt to commemorate Dani Jarque.
Spain’s previous six games have produced a total of 19 yellows, only three of which have been for them. Holland finish the tournament as the team with the worst disciplinary record – twice as bad as anyone else.
Later in the game Johnny Heitinga is sent off for a second booking when he hauls Iniesta back in the middle of a one-two with Xavi. Puyol should have been sent off, too, for climbing on Robben as he broke through. Robben is a menace, but Capdevila plays him excellently, and he manages it half-lame.
Joan Capdevila: “Did you see the state of my ankle that night? Van Persie stamped right on it and the ref booked him, but it was so bad I was sure I wouldn’t be able to carry on after half-time The ankle was already swollen up like a tennis ball. During the break I had to lie down because of the pain. I got some treatment, got it bandaged up tight and just forced myself to play on in the end. In a normal match you’d give up after an injury like that, but that day it was different.”
Heitinga conjures up a miraculous block from David Villa close in, when the striker’s volley seemed a certain goal.
Then, with 20 minutes left, a heart-stopping moment. Sneijder, although falling, spears a pass between Puyol and Piqué and Robben is free through the middle, just him and his former Real Madrid team-mate Casillas. The Spanish captain initially looks befuddled. He takes a couple of hops forward then a couple of steps back. Instead, he is undergoing a transformation. Suddenly, there is ice in his veins.
Robben advances, he picks his spot and he correctly judges that Casillas, as a left-footed player, has a marginal preference for diving to his left in 50:50 situations. However, Casillas extends his right leg up in the air, stretched as far as he is able and Robben’s net-bound shot clips the toe of Casillas’ right boot. Unfeasibly, the ball deflects wide. The best save I have ever seen.
With seven minutes left, Robben again gobbles up a headed knock-on and powers through. Puyol grapples him, tries to bring him down and Robben insists on staying upright and trying to dribble round Casillas to score. However, his momentum is checked, Casillas dives at his feet and the second-best chance of the game is gone.
Ramos misses with a convertable header. Fàbregas is in prime scoring position but Stekelenburg produces a save with his outstretched boot which is almost the equal to that made by Casillas.
The climax of the story is near, but now the chief protagonist comes close to leaving the stage. Andrés Iniesta thought he wasn’t going to make it to this tournament. Once here, injury very nearly robbed him of a chance to play. Now, it very nearly all slips away from him at the last moment, due to the most uncharacteristic loss of one of the most even tempers in football. Van Bommel has fouled consistently and now goes over the ball to plant his studs on Iniesta’s ankle. No foul is given. As the play moves away, Iniesta get up and checks Van Bommel, knee to thigh.
Andrés Iniesta: “I was just being fouled for 80 minutes. Perhaps the referee, if he wanted to interpret it differently then maybe he could have sent me off. These things happen in football.”
Howard Webb speaks to Iniesta, but that is all. The decision – which makes sense in the context of what has been allowed to pass that night – changes Iniesta’s life, and football history.
With just over four minutes left in extra-time, Navas, in a right wingback position, sets off with a skip and a hop down the touchline. His inside pass to Iniesta, centre pitch, is shuttled on to Fàbregas, who supplies Torres out wide. He sees the run Iniesta has made forward – the little midfielder is at the far right-hand edge of the box. However, Torres slightly underhits the crossfield ball.
Van der Vaart is filling in for Heitinga at centre-back. As he attempts to clear, he slips and the ball is available on the edge of Holland’s penalty area. Fabregas has anticipated and takes a touch before cushioning a pass to Iniesta. Van der Vaart should be in midfield, marking Iniesta. Instead he is in defence, covering for Heitinga, sent off for a foul on … Iniesta. There is one name cropping up here again and again and again.
Andrés Iniesta: “In that moment we were alone, the ball and I. I could hear nothing. As far as I was concerned, the whole stadium had fallen silent. I waited for the Isaac Newton effect, for gravity to make the ball drop and the second I had it at my foot, I knew it was going in, I just knew it. It had all come down to this moment. I knew exactly how to control it and where to put it: as hard as I could across Stekelenburg, so that he had no time to react.”
Back in Fuentealbilla, where Iniesta was born, his dad José Antonio is watching at home, alone. His fear of flying is such that he took the train from Barcelona to Vienna for the Euro 2008 final and he often misses his son’s biggest games. In such circumstances, he prefers to watch in peace and quiet. When his son scores, José Antonio turns off the television immediately. He cannot bear the tension of the next couple of minutes.
Iniesta’s mother, María Francisca Luján, meantime, is equally stressed down at Bar Luján, in the centre of town, where Grandad Iniesta was the landlord for 35 years. On retirement, he converted every newspaper cutting he ever saved about his talented grandson into an archive which covers every millimetre of wall space. On the night of Iniesta’s final it is packed, like most bars in Spain, and María Francisca is so uptight that she goes outside to seek fresh air and is still out there when her son scores his historic goal.
Now he is tearing off his Spain shirt so that the world can see his t-shirt: ‘Dani Jarque, always with us.’ Now he is submerged. Long after the tournament, he will admit that even in the heat of this moment, he quickly reckons on staying in that mad celebratory huddle for as long as Webb will permit, in order to use up time.
At the far end of the pitch, Iker Casillas sets off on a run, arms outstretched as if he is trying to build up enough speed to take flight. As emotion over-rides adrenaline, he collapses to his knees and tears overtake him.
Del Bosque is standing motionless, alone. He is in the perspex dugout, like a guy waiting for a bus to take him home to Salamanca after a long day at work.
Four minutes later, that whistle sounds.
Fireworks light up the sky above Fuentealbilla. Only then does José Antonio Iniesta know for sure that his son has won the World Cup for Spain.
Holland 0 Spain 1 (after extra-time)
Holland: Stekelenburg, Van der Wiel, Heitinga, Mathijsen, Van Bronckhorst
(Braafheid 105), Van Bommel, De Jong (Van der Vaart 99), Robben, Sneijder,
Kuyt (Elia 71), Van Persie
Spain: Casillas, Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila, Busquets, Alonso
(Fabregas 87), Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro (Navas 60), Villa (Torres 106)
Goal: Iniesta 116